File image
WADESBORO — During a specially scheduled town council meeting to approve the budget, the possibility of hiring a full-time grant writer again became a topic of contention amongst council members, with some feeling the recent grant writing training received by Wadesboro Town Manger Wiley Ross Jr. and its Finance Officer Maureen Mason, through the UNC- Chapel Hill School of Governance sponsored 2024-2025 Municipal County Administration course has provided them with the necessary expertise to write technical government grants. The town has set aside a salary range of $80,000 to $84,000 plus benefits to attract a grant writer. According to Mason, the total amount for the position should come to roughly $100,000 yearly.
Mason began the meeting by announcing that despite not currently having a grant writer, the town has applied for and been granted multiple beneficial grants.
She explained, “The town is currently managing several major grants that are vital to its progress and development, including the American Rescue Plan grant [ARPA], the three separate projects totaling $14, 995,500 and a $1.4 million Community Development Block grant [CBDG], a $3 million CBDGI infrastructure project, and a $400,000 storm water assessment, which is expected to lead to additional funding needs for implementation.”
In favor of hiring a grant writer, Mason cautioned, “Without a qualified individual managing millions of dollars in funding, the town risks mismanagement, non-compliance, and the loss of crucial financial support.” She added that a grant can be revoked halfway through its application if any errors or technicalities are found to be present in the writing of the grant.
Detained from attending the meeting, Councilman Chipper Long weighed in by phone. Asking and answering his own question, Long said, “Who is managing those grants for us now? The office and everything we have had all along. How much time is your hire of the out of county manager obligated to manage things? What I’m trying to do is [establish] fiscal responsibility here. By ordinance, we had to hire you [Ross], and, in the past, your responsibilities have been the responsibility of the town manager. Now that you are hired and you have a staff, shouldn’t that free up some time?”
Long went on to ask if between Ross, Mason, and their staff, they could not oversee some of this administrative work. He added, “If we are able to manage the grants we have, if there is a grant there that we bought a fire truck with, a splash pad, and this and that, I understand the block grant, but it is only for like a million bucks, and we should not have to make $100,000 plus a year hiring [package] to someone.”
In response, Mason said if nothing else, the training program Ross and she undertook convinced her more than anything the town of Wadesboro needs a professional, qualified grant writer.
“This training actually convinced me even more that we need a grant writer. I’m not up to it. I am not willing to put the town’s financial stability at risk on this federal grant, because this project can be mid-cycle and we could lose this grant if in any way, shape, or form we mess up,” said Mason.
Long confirmed he is against the hiring of a grant writer at this time.
In response to a question posed by Councilman Garrett Snuggs regarding paying the grant writer’s salary out of an applied for grant, Mason answered, “It does depend, [especially when] speaking for new grants. It does depend on the grant and how much they will allow. Every grant is different, and then the grant writer would have to keep meticulous time sheet records so we can charge the salary expenses to that grant.”
When it comes to utilizing an existing grant in this manner, Mason said she was unsure and would need to research whether one of the existing grants could be used to accommodate the grant writer’s proposed salary needs.
Snuggs said, “I am not opposed to hiring a grant writer, but I’m going to be more comfortable paying as we go versus the town committed to that large of a salary. You know our administration costs have gone up over the last two years.”
Mason confirmed to the council the salary would need to be in the budget if the town is serious about hiring for the position. For now, the salary for a grant writer is included under administration. She said, “As time goes on, as we make that determination, how much of this can be charged to this grant, and that grant and this grant, those expenses will be moved out of the administration budget.”
Mason added she believed a portion of the grant writer’s salary might be charged to water and sewer, especially when the grants the town would want this hire to look for would also be in water and sewer.
Agreeing, Ross said, “The majority of the grants that we are going after are the infrastructure grants, is going to be the cost grants- a lot of those grants have a 10%, 5% allocation for admin. costs. So, if you write three grants for $4 million, that person’s salary would be covered.” He added, “We thought this would be a great idea for us to kind of go after some funds for our police department, for water and sewer, for finance, for HR.”
Ross pointed out many small towns across the country have decided to hire grant writers of their own, and reminded council the county recently hired a grant writer as well.
When Mayor Davis recalled the outstanding payment for a new fire truck along with other necessary expenditures included in the budget, Councilman Snuggs expressed his desire to hold off on making such an expensive decision.
He said, “I would like to kick the can down the road. If it’s money that the town of Wadesboro can obtain that is going to make this place better operating, better place to work, and liberate our children, I’m going to be all for that. However, we need it to be some type of mechanism, some type of triggers to make sure that we ain’t on the hook for no $100,000, that we get our money back as quickly as possible.”
Ultimately, the Wadesboro town council voted to approve the budget, minus funding for a grant writer position at this time. Deciding to research the benefits of the position and how to obtain funding for it, the council voted to table the issue until a later date.
